bJ [ 892 ]
PLANTAGO Coronopus.
Buck's-horn Plantain.
TETRANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. Char. Cal. 4-cleft. Cor. 4-cleft, inferior;
its limb reflexed. Stamina very long. Capf with
2 cells, burfting all round.
Spec. C har. Leaves linear, in many pinnate feg-
ments. Stalk round.
Svn. Plantago Coronopus. Linn. Sp. PI. 166. Sm.
FI. B rit. 185. Iludf. 64. With. 198. Hull. 34.
Relb. 62. Sibth. 56. Abbot. 31.
P. foliis laciniatis, Coronopus didla. Rail Syn. 315.
/3. P. gramineo folio hirfuto, minor, capitulo rotundo
brevi. D ill, in Rail Syn. 316.
C>OMMON on dry fandy or gravelly ground, and by the
fea fide in many places, flowering all fummer long.
Root annual, tapering. Leaves radical, numerous, fpreading
in a ftar-like form and generally prefled clofe to the ground,
whence one of the old names of this fpecies, Star of the Earth;
they are divided in a pinnatifid manner into numerous deep
linear fegments, frequently toothed and fubdivided, pointed,
more or lefs hairy. Stalks feveral, fimple, round, hairy,
fpreading from the bafe, then afcending, the central one only
being quite ereft. Spike about an inch long, denfe, greenifh.
Corolla white. Anther® terminated by a membrane.
Few plants vary more in fize. On dry expofed heaths the
little hoary leaves feem almoft prefled into the earth, and the
fpikes are fo fhort as to become capitate. In the maritime
variety (3 the leaves are almoft entire.
W e fhould be tempted to adopt (with Mr. Relhan) the name
coremopifolia for this fpecies inftead of the fubftantive Coronopus,
as another Coronopus now Hands as a genus in the FI. Brit,
p. 690; but this being the identical plant fo named by the
oldeft writers, fuch an innovation is perhaps better avoided.